Review: Wings of Prey: Collector's Edition

Chuck "PFunk" Bellows reviews Wings of Prey: Collector's Edition.

http://SimHQ.com/_air13/air_474a.html

Really enjoyable read - cheers PFunk.

Gaijin are currently working on sequels, including a PC only title, so for a first go around I think it's a pretty good effort.

You read fast FF

Yep, when I was 9 I had the reading speed of a 14 year old. Unfortunately I'm 43 now and still have the reading speed of a 14 year old...

You forgot to mention, its still more fun to look at and play than 'CLOD' is..amazing isn't it?!

Right on the money.

Yeah,it's a fair review although I never had all that hassle with the installation.
I will admit that YuPlay sucks,especially on top of Steam (which doesn't suck) and a few times YuPlay has offered me patches that put my installation back a few versions
Maybe my fault for not reading what the patch was,I just assumed that if they offered me a new patch it would be newer than the version I was running.

MP is reasonable,although I rarely see more than half a dozen servers here in the UK.

Pitty the author couldn't find any players to go against in MP, I suppose it's something regional or I don't understand it. He posted on the SimHQ Gaijin forum asking why he can't find anyone online when he tries so I tried to go online as well when I had read it. In Southern Europe it was 3 am and when I got on there were no games showing. I created one without much hope of anyone joining me but very soon had a game with 6 people going. It doesn't always work but sometimes it does. MP is good fun.

I agree on some points mentioned. The customer experience leaves some to be desired and Gaijin could learn from reviews like this. It should be easy for (potential) customers to get and enjoy products, not hard.

I wish the author would have spent a bit more time with the game in Simulator mode and explain a bit closer what he meant by saying the FMs defy most Newtonian rules. I did a bit of testing of the latest flight models and the performance characteristics are very close to the historical models. In more ways than not I find the FMs to be correct. However, there are some aerodynamic issues which may be visible for experienced simmers or real life pilots. http://forum.gaijinent.com/index.php?/topic/3777-aerodynamic-principles/
http://forum.gaijinent.com/index.php?/topic/3598-fm-testing-since-1037-beta/

I should be adding that the immersion Wings of Prey creates due to its amazing graphics is perhaps the best I've ever seen.

MAC

To be fair, Mac, I think the title is far more popular where you are than where I am, and that's unfortunate. It's unfortunate because this game has potential and IT LOOKS AMAZING.

I really have been looking for a replacement for Jane's WW2 Fighters for a while now. CFS3 almost did it, but you needed the Airpower expansion in order for it look anything less than ugly. And even then, it wasn't a very good game.

IL2 was a cheating dog. I hated it for that very reason. It looked phenomenal, the flight dynamics were dead-on, but I didn't fly MP when it came out because unlike the rest of the country, I was in a rural area and living on dial-up internet. I loved the way it looked and flew, I hated the way it cheated in order to kill me.

I really wanted to like WOP and it pisses me off that I came away cold from it.

Thanks for the review, I had fun reading it.

I have the game, but don't play it. I used to just fly around.

That's a pretty fair review.. Although I find the FMs & DMs tolerable ... For example.. I find that in may ways the ballistics seem better.. and often I can line up a shot by just kicking a little rudder.. like pilot accounts state.. not the weeble wobble of IL2 in some planes.. It could be better but it's tolerable.. My biggest beef is the whole online thing and the lack of a mission builder of any kind.. The whole patching thing is a nightmare too.. Sometimes I have to log out and log back in.. several times to get updates.. The sounds could be better.. but I have managed to get some enjoyment out of WoP.. I think the latest release is much better than the original out of the box version.. but it still needs work.

A well written and very good review overall IMO..

I agree with Bearcat that the DM an FM are adequate. I find them satisfying. I disagree wqith Pfunk about the sound. Overall, I don't agree with PFunk's assessment of Wings of Prey. I think it IS the successor to Janes WWII Fighters. Why? It is beautiful, cinematic and fun (the key word here is "immersion." These are among a minority of Russian developers who actually understand what that word means in the context of military flight sims. Are listening 1C? Eagle Dynamics?). And the FMs are believable enough.

I don't care about the lack of a mission builder. I've been playing PC flight sims since the 80s and have never once even TRIED to create a mission in any sim.

I don't care about the lacf of participation in MP because I rarely (and I do mean 'rarely') even attempt to log on to a MP server for a flight sim. Once or twice in a 12-month period, maybe.

I don't care about the so-called timer becausse I've never experienced it. How long do you have to play before encountering this mysterious timer? To me it's fun and done. I guess I never play long enough to experience the timer. But that goes for all flight sims, I guess. The genre doesn't hold my interest enough to play for hours on end, like I do with a Tom Clancy tactical shooter. FSX would be the one exception. I once flew a commercial airliner in real time from New York City to London. That was like six, seven consecutive hours in front of my PC. But a combat flight sim? No, I want combat. Immediately. No matter who wins or loses.

Wings of Prey is super good in my book. PFunk must've had a bad day, but he's forgiven.

That review was hysterical! Awesome job.

Eh, I can't say that I experienced any of the issues that the reviewer claims.

I did not buy from Steam as I was in the early access beta. Purchasing was easy at that time and so was purchasing the Wings of Luftwaffe add-on. Patching since the beginning has been a really simple experience using their own contained torrent client.

I also didn't wait til the end of the game's life cycle and pick it up for a song on a lark with the expectation of a thriving multiplayer community. As one who was there since the beginning, I in general found very little multiplayer action, but I also did not make a tremendous effort to find any as I was getting out of the genre altogether.

Perhaps I missed this fact in the review, but it is well known that the flight engine was based on the Il-2 series, so, if there are any faults to be found there, my assumption is that those would largely apply to the Il-2 engine in general.

As to the game being a console port, this is clearly a factual error. If you merely take the Xbox 360 version, you will know that the 360 is not capable of the kind of graphic effects found in the PC game. It's a much enhanced graphics engine that does DirectX 10 and of course at much higher resolutions.

If anything, the console versions are mere subsets of the PC game that would have been developed first, i.e. all games are developed on PCs. In addition, the PC version of the game supports, of course, TrackIR and any number of PC HOTAS and joystick peripherals.

I think what the reviewer might have said that would have been more accurate is that the PC version of the game included no additional gameplay modes or features than the console versions, which is fair if not totally accurate considering that I don't think the Wings of Luftwaffe add-on was available for the console. I could be wrong on that though.

Had the PC version come out first, one might have said the console versions were mere PC ports. At this point in the development of video games, these distinctions make little sense except where it is clear that a "port" suffers in quality compared to the "original" version. This is clearly not the case with the PC version as it is much enhanced over the console versions.

As to game difficulty and levels, I played through most of the game on Sim mode without any problems except in the ground missions, so I did not experience any of the fragility of ship/toughness of enemies problems that the reviewer found as I never played it in "pussy mode".

I also find it difficult to believe that most players of the game would be able to ferret out any supposed problems with the flight model or the ballistics, if those problems do exist, as most players have absolutely no frame of reference for making those assessments. Unless you've flown these planes in combat conditions, you don't know #%&*$# and those who have are now largely dead. The quality of the sim is generally based on verisimilitude rather than any real conformance to reality. It felt like a sim to me, so to me it is a sim, and the graphics made up for any failings that I might have looked for.

I note that the reviewer did not mention what is to my mind one of the coolest features of the game, the cinema verite camera mode in the gameplay replays. Ever wanted to make a bad-ass gameplay movie but have absolutely no video editing skills or no desire to get them?? Just watch as your recorded gameplay will switch from interesting moment to moment with that bobbing camera and varying framings that mimic action movie pulp. I frankly spent more time watching my replays than playing the game, which is perhaps not the best thing that could be said of a game, but I found it pretty compelling and really unique within the flight sim genre.

Overall, I think the reviewer chose to review the game at the wrong time and with the wrong attitude and focus.

We reviewed the Collector's Edition that shipped in the EU last month and has not yet been distributed in the US, so, it's about as recent as just about any other gaming site gets around to reviewing a simulation.

Hi Foucault,

Just a quick correction, Wing of Prey doesn't seem to use DirectX 10 but the Direct3D 9 run-time (looking at the libraries it uses as it runs on my DX11 system). It also has some XNA common controller things still linked in, which shows it's original Xbox 360 origins.

As I think the reviewer said a few times, the game looks wonderful, so there's no complaints in that department.

As for the flight models being IL2's, I think there's all sorts of history there, as in Oleg and Co did license it originally but it got altered somewhat for Birds of Prey (PS3/Xbox 360) so that in the end it didn't end up that similar. I think there's some stuff on the Gaijin forums about this.

Enjoyable read, PFunk.

I think it was more of a Yuplay review.
Yuplay has one side that's a form of DRM, but that aspect is removed now. Yuplay is also their digital distribution outlet and method of matchmaking. The digital distribution and matchmaking don't have anything to do with activation limits...different subjects. You can't play 360 titles online without Live. You can't play PS3 titles online without PSN. You can't play WoW and many other online games without logging in. Yuplay is just another system among hundreds. It needs improvements, as I'll gov over next, but it's nothing evil. It doesn't take 2 days to patch and play this game, that's just plain silly.

Gotta say, I'm pretty sick of hearing "console port". These are created on pc, which is of course what a 360 is but with standardized hardware. PS3 is a different animal coding-wise, but I believe even that changeover is well in hand these days.
"Console port". "Chicken or the egg" says I. PC games typically have better use of peripheral devices, capable of adapting to a variety of hardware combinations and usually make use of more control options than a console (well, with Pinnacle I can get most anything going on a 360 controller...another discussion though). WOP meets each of those requirements, it's not simply the same game as IL2 Birds of Prey copy/pasted onto a pc. I'd say it benefits in being so well optimized for consoles that taking into account the pc's advantages, it ends up an even better product than if it were pc-only.

If you can't find a game it's due to a major shortcoming in the system---it doesn't show you ongoing games. Most that complain about this didn't try to open a room themselves (Pfunk may have though, I'm generalizing from past discussions). So, you don't see a game, didn't open a room...just like many others...many people take their ball and go home without really trying.
Ideally, the game would show you ongoing games, which ones have room in there, which ones are full, ping and give you a lobby to wait in and watch the action in the meantime. Almost all games have given up on this basic MP component. With a niche market, it looks like no one is playing, making a system like that even more crucial.
If you can't find a game, then start up your own room. Then you get an idea of how busy the game is. No lobby is bad for longevity though. With any luck they're making improvements in this area for the upcoming titles.

It should be noted that Pfunk seems to be looking for a hardcore sim. It's hard for many hardcore racers to go from iRacing back to rFactor or Simbin titles (other than cost factor). Doesn't change that they're all sims. It is what it is, and WOP hits it's target as intended. Very well at that. There's no shame in it, Gaijin did a great job. Don't buy a BMW expecting a Mercedes. They're both great cars, but simply different. Pfunk gives that perspective pretty well for those looking for one or the other, just in a fairly negative sense rather than objective. The review is appreciated regardless. I think a Cliffs of Dover review would be more beneficial these days, being a recent release (well, not so recent anymore). I hope that's coming soon, I cancelled my pre-order due to discussions in the forum "best not mentioned", I'd like to get some facts.

I agree a console port is not necessarily a bad thing, and the quality can often be higher in the graphics department, but there are down-sides too. For example the Xbox 360 has 512Mb of system RAM, and a graphics pipeline based around DirectX 8 with a 256MB GPU.

Wings of Prey is expanded outside what Birds of Prey did, but the major assets used are still limited by what the consoles could handle, i.e. the map size, the complexity of the models and the various effects. For a lot of games this doesn't matter, but the harder-core you get for a sim then the more it's harder to manage.

The networking/multiplayer side of WoP is similar to the console versions in that it uses the 'peer to peer' method where the play acts as a server on their own machine. This is how a lot of Xbox/PS3 titles work, but limits how many simultaneous connections people can handle. I agree with you that something like Yuplay needs to be used to at least register players to each other. A dedicated server and the ability to do things like user mods is something Gaijin seems keen on for the WoP sequel coming next year.

The Yuplay patching was hard-work for me, in that it took a long time to update all the various patches (not two days, but on my 50mb net about 5 hours). The version I downloaded from Yuplay seemed really out of date (i.e. they gave me the base game, at least 10 patches behind) so I think it does warrant some criticism and room for improvement.

As for CoD, I think the often repeated stance is that when it's released in the US then SimHQ will review it. I own both and think they are quite different styles of game.

On the map, it's larger than it appears on the map screen since it zooms out as you go beyond the border. However, what you call a limitation I call game design. The map is perfect for what they want the game to be. For me, variety of terrain and locations is far more important than flyable, but useless, territory. Game design. It does what it's intended to do and, like I said, it does it well.

ok. I have always kept the latest full version on an external hard drive,(latest full and probably the last is 1.0.4.1 released yesterday.).
then install it. patching was never an issue with me ,always smooth and trouble free.I do sympathise with others who have probs with logging in/out patching etc and i always felt it was an ops. misunderstanding caused by gajiins mixed up way of doing it but maybe i was lucky:).

Graphics and smooth gameplay and quick MP fix are what sold it for me,im not a simmer so the fact that it is criticised for that didnt bother me,loved playing with friends on teamspeak in the first 6 months of release it was so much fun,not so many people online thesedays but i can nearly always find a game to join,if not i make my own and its rare to not be joined within 10 mins by afew others,

No its not perfect but ive had so much fun and pleasure from this game that i cant wait to ALPHA test World Of Planes the new upcoming game .

The review was fair and to the point but WOP im still playing whereas ROF and CLOD and IL2 1946 are no longer on my drive.

ssssssssssssssssssnake

Spot on review, but I found the constant use of "console port" annoying too. One can't help but feel like you're venturing into PC Elitist territory there.

Hi PFunk,

Perhaps I should add that the game also feels amazing and very immersive due to its graphics. You get a feeling of flying as I haven't seen in any other flight simulation game yet, and you get the airplanes to do what you mostly would expect them to do. In more ways than not, the FMs are correct, especially as far as performance parameters are concerned.

The way the FMs achieve this isn't always what you would expect in a real airplane, but this is probably not that noticeable for a wider audience. Since you mention IL-2, the original Wings of Prey flight models were licensed from IL2-1946 version 4.0.5 there and have since been further developed.

No doubt some things could be better, but I have to admit that I'm perhaps more critical than most since I'm a real life pilot.



MAC

Nice review! Enjoyed reading it.
Actually a bit of a shame that this game is even better than Clifs of Dover

Where'd the Forums go? After the article read - It had me interested, but I see nothing to follow-up with.

For me, "console port" implies a few things:

A menu system that can't be used with a mouse, just keyboard or gamepad, or the mouse is enabled but works poorly.
The ubiquitous "don't turn off your PC while you see this loading symbol" message that ONLY makes sense on a console.
A game tuned to a more visible reward system to get you to keep playing, the implicit message being that just playing the game alone won't be enough to hook you (note that there are PC-only games that do this, but it's far more common on the console side).
A tendency to "hand hold" the player thru most aspects of the game in lieu of letting them figure it out or (heaven forbid!) read a manual.
Overall limits on the technical aspects of the game that come from being designed to run on the (now very) dated hardware of the consoles.

Not every game I would label console port has all these things, but usually they have a majority.

I don't have WoP, so I can't say if it does or doesn't, closest I got was the BoP demo off XBL. That DID feel like a console game like Blazing Angels or Ace Combat as opposed to a sim like Il-2 or CFS, but I know BoP and WoP aren't identical.



The Jedi Master

In fairness, PFunk stated he doesn't like IL-2's FM's, so no suprise he didn't like WoP's!

I can't speak to the rest, as I didn't get past the demo; just wasn't my cup of tea.

Good to hear from a REAL pilot, Macademic, that the FMs in WoP are good. PFunk seemed to have an "agenda" in his review. That's the feeling I got reading it. At least WoP actually works, i.e., is exactly as pre-advertised, unlike ClOD. If one doesn't like WoP, well some don't like chocolate chip cookies. It's a matter of taste. But it least it provides exactly what people who waited for it and play it were looking for--the natural successor to Janes WWII Fighters, which is exactly what I was lookinng for (for years) and is exactly what I got.

CLoD on the other hand, is nowhere close to what it was advertised to be and what its fanboys were looking for. 40% from GAmespot and 45% from the best and most respected flight/racing sim reviewer on the planet, Andy Mahood, is brutally telling.

Well I do appreciate Macademic's feedback and comments here at SimHQ, especially from a piolt... but in fairness you really should identify who you are in relations to this game and the development team... if you are so connected.


Pfunk and I have never seen eye to eye on games and reviews... but a review is the authors opinion... it's not a statement of fact... his reviews or mine... you got to know the reviewer and know if you agree with him most of the time to take a review to heart... Pfunk has many readers here who agree with his opinions and articles, and some that don't... same with me... many agree with my tactical reviews and articles, many don't... you weigh your virtual relationship with the writer to help make up your opinion about a game.

so no review is right or wrong... sure you readers have a right to voice your own opinions and ideas, agreements and disagreements... but to simply say a review is "wrong" or the reviewer "had a bad day" is BS... be more constructive, will ya.

...um ... ... didn't there used to be a forum topic for WoP under the WWII era Flight Sims?

There's a Gaijin forum now, since they've got not only WOP but 2 more titles in the works. Best way to do it, too many forums anyway. LOL Now if the IL2 forums could just get combined...

Accusing an agenda is at best, rude and at worst defamatory. That's a classless thing to do, and it's a review, so of course it's opinion based.

Also, CoD being 'bad' doesn't make WoP 'good', and it's laughable that keeps getting brought up.I don't know why you'd even want to come to a sim review site or forum if you start with the broken attitude that other people's opinions are always wrong.

Like Magnum said, why so negative all the time?

This game may be for some, but it just wasn't for me, for the reasons I've outlined.

I like that they tried and I wish them luck on future endeavors, but it simply didn't meet the criterion I have to label something a sim, which makes me something I really hate admitting, a hardcore acolyte...of sorts. There's certain things a title has to do and WOP just didn't do it. Worse, it didn't work. Buyers purchasing the package are thinking the Luftwaffe content is included, and in my case, it wasn't. That alone gave it a real black eye for me. Your product needs to work out of the box, it just has to function, or you're asking for trouble. Look at the launch of Cliffs of Dover if you need any further evidence of that.

You didn't really write anything particularly out-of-line with SimHQ's core audience - a quick look at the forums main page and the 'viewing now' numbers show what people are playing and what's interesting to them.

The WoP sequel looks really promising, but WoP itself struggled to establish itself (rightly or wrongly) as a sim.

Lionpride, the Gaijin consolidated forum is here:
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/forums/189/1/Gaijin_Flight_Series.html

A reminder to everyone that PFunk reviewed the Collector's Edition, which was just recently made available, and not the original WoP release. To receive a boxed, retail DVD then have to download gigabytes to get it current on a 3 month old release is just wrong no matter how it is sliced.

Plainsman... agenda, huh? PFunk and I were both surprised at the outcome and frankly going in, we both expected it to show better than it did. No agenda.

I think the game's biggest problem was that it failed to match the mission balance with the level of realism. IE, the campaign was unplayable on anything but arcade, and the single missions were only sometimes tailored for simulator or realistic modes. On top of that, the AI, which needs a giant helping hand in arcade mode as the player is neigh invincible, retains all kinds of advantages in the harder modes which make them too godlike when the player is subject to more lifelike restrictions.

I found the review very fair and PFunk shares my own experience with WoP. Probably the most beautiful looking Flight Sim on the market, but let down by the gameplay.
I still have the game but very rarely fire it up.

I just hope WoP 2 pulls everything together.

Again, I don't understand the "CoD sucks, so WOP is better" rationale. They BOTH have serious problems, neither one does what it said it would.

Neither one really amounts to a sim because in my opinion FOR RIGHT FRICKIN' NOW neither one does what it was intended to. WOP isn't a sim because it doesn't act like one. It acts like a game. COD isn't a sim because it isn't finished.

So people will understand where I'm coming from, let me explain my background so you can see what I think a sim is. My first flight-themed PC game was Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, shortly after that, I spent way too much time on MicroProse's Stealth Fighter 2.0. So I go back a ways.

Every flight sim has a following, a 'camp'. You have Falcon fanbois, Jane's F-15 and F-18 guys, and so on. Everyone thinks 'their' sim is the best. I am a Flankerite. I consider it a sim. I consider IL-2 a sim. I consider MSFS a sim. You beginning to see a trend?

Those are all sims because I think they mimicked flight to a proper degree that puts them in that category. Also, they worked.

WOP is not a sim. It remains to be seen if COD will ever become one.

Gee I hope you had in-flight service

PFunk - absolutely agree, well said.

I regularly play IL2, WoP, CoD, RoF, FSX, DCS:A10, DCS:BS, BC2, BF2 PR, ArmA2, a whole bunch of RTS's and way (way) more console titles. They are all different and they are all good at what they do. Picking one as a 'mortal enemy' or one as some sort of 'promised-land' makes no sense.

Exactly. I didn't like JF-18, but that was hardly a reason to say that Flanker 2.0 was a better title. It's all about personal preference. When guod asks me to review a sim, he doesn't ask me to account for others, he doesn't ask me to play nice with developers so we can get nonexistent checks for millions of dollars in the mail (still haven't got one yet), he asks me -and every other staffer here- what we think. We tell him. He prints it.

Coming from a more sim-racing perspective, I'd say WOP is sort of a "Gran Turismo" style sim. It models flight in a generally correct way, but it seems to lack the detail and precision of other products. Of course, to me, mostly what makes it not a sim is the campaign and the missions themselves. They are, of course, not even trying to be realistic.

When I first played it, it made me think of Lucasart's Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, which is not at all a bad thing. Anyways, I like Wings of Prey. I don't think it will have too much lasting value for me (I just bought it a few days ago), but I've had more fun with it so far than you get from most $50 AAA major releases.

Mostly what annoys me is the AI. It might just be my poor energy management, but I don't think their planes are following the same physical laws as mine. The 109's tend to go into near vertical climbs that seem to go on forever without losing any speed, so dogfighting can be frustrating. It got to the point where I turned on the "arcade boost" option (which seems give you something like an extra 500hp in WEP), and that didn't even really cut it--though I I did wreck a lot of engines, could be that aid doesn't play well with the other settings on simulation.

Man, it does have a damn fine graphics engine though, maybe a little too artsy (er, "cinematic") at times. COD has the better, more detailed graphics to be sure, but not so much more so to account for the huge frame rate difference. There is a lot to be said for a rock-solid, never wavering constant 60fps with vsync.

Bottom line, if I had a friend who was starting from zero and looking to get into WWII flight sims, I'd certainly point out WOP as a good place to start. Based on my experience with the training missions, it has a good ramp up from kid easy to reasonably realistic. It also has more than enough action to keep someone such as that from getting bored or frustrated, and hopefully by the time they've exhausted WOP, COD will be fixed.

ed: Oh, and I don't have the Special Edition (whatever is reviewed here), I bought it on Steam, and installation and so forth was typically easy as it usually is with Steam. Don't think I care for the YuPlay software, but I have yet to have to even register an account, and since I don't intend to play online, I probably never will.

Ever notice how discussion of a game usually deviates to the labels? Said it before and I'll say it again: people need to take their labels a little less seriously. Talk about the game, not the label. "Sim", "console", "port". Waste of time. Did you enjoy it, yes or no? Why? That's what people want to see and it allows them to drawn their own conclusions, or at least enough to decide if they want to try the game. They're all games, btw--that's my label for them as long as they're played just for entertainment.

Of course, WOP has been out for over a year now, however you paint it. I do agree that the repackaging wasn't a good idea without at least updating to the current release.
The effort to review is appreciated, I know it takes time to write up, I'm just afraid it's too late to be relevant. No offense intended. "See original review--same disc" would probably suffice. LOL
By this time, people are pretty solidly decided if they like it or don't. You can tell that by the comments in here. At least it stirred some activity and discussion about an article though! Too many go unnoticed.

I think it's worth pointing out that all the products that are discussed and which would run on a consumer PC, whether it be Cliffs of Dover, Jane's, IL-2, WOP etc., are all games. I like to call them Flight Simulation Games, which for me is the fairest description. Some may be more games than others, but none of them is a flight simulator. A Flight Simulator is a multi million dollar certified training device for pilots that features a real cockpit and a high fidelity (well, certified) simulation. And from my own experience even these cannot replicate flight as it really is, although the best ones (Certification D) come close enough to allow pilots to complete a type rating without ever having flown the real thing.

Having said that, this should not stop game producers from attending to what their customers want. For some the flight simulation part is more important than to others. Some want a stronger focus on the game aspect. It's a big world. Let's all enjoy what we like and remember, it's a game.

MAC

Sacrilege! Some of the people on these boards are far too "grown up" to play mere games. For you to insinuate that they spend hours upon hours sitting in front of a tiny screen, grasping a joystick, playing a game is equivalent to saying you saw their mom in a restroom at a truck stop in a stall.
They "fly sims", they NEVER "play games"! They're too good for that! Their intelligence and refinement is light-years away from those who are simply "gamers", and don't you dare try and tell them that the program they spent a big $50 for years ago and whined about the whole time is just a "game"! After all, they spent hundreds of dollars on that joystick!



The Jedi Master

So very true. Even though I consider PC flight sims "games" and think there is nothing wrong with that at all-- I love games, games are fun --I usually word my posts and articles carefully, using more generic terms like "software" and, as you say, "drive" or "fly" instead of "play."

There's always someone who gets all bent out of shape about the "game" thing.

Relevant to the article, but I noticed Wings of Prey is 66% off this week via Steam, $10 is a good deal if people are curious but not sure..

http://store.steampowered.com/app/45300/

Don't think this includes the DLC stuff in the edition reviewed though.

That would have to be a personal opinion, I played CoD online for an hour or two last night. it's been a long tinme since Ive seen anyone online to play WOP, yes it would be pretty without that awful filter, but there isnt much else in the game worth talking about, still too much of a console port for me.

I don't think the filter is awful at all. It helps set the mood that you are in the past and not flying a refurbished 109 on July 02, 2011, which is il2: COD.

Yes because that's how the world really looked like back in the day instead of how colourful and clear it is now.

I can't wait to read your review of the fully up to date version...

Any news on an addendum to the Wings of Prey review based on 1.0.4.1?

MAC

Hmm an interesting review and a lot of fights afterwards, and yeah mac for you it´s a game well it would be for anyone that would´ve ever used a professional full-motion Flight simulator. Or anyone that has ever flown a real plane. To a lot of us it´s the closest most ever get to flying those aircraft. Still I think you are also sticking a bit too much to the labels.

Well Graphics might be a grand immersion to you, but I for example respond more to sound, so if something does not sound right, I don´t like it. I like the MWLL mod for Crysis Wars for example, not for the admittedly awesome graphics, but for the even more awesome sound. If you are underwater it feels underwater as the sound adjusts itself, and the change in sound over distance, and the AC20´s just sounding as big and bad as they should. The Graphics might be absolutely gorgeous, but if the sound does not fit, it pretty much destroys it for me. I have less problems with it if its an old game, but if its a new game and has gorgeous graphics, then a bad sound is absolutely jarring. And feels like somebody was just plain lazy.

Why don´t you do the review based on the new patch? Since, I don´t think PFunk likes WOP very much and a lot would cry "BIASED"! After he´s done.
Frankly his thoughts mirror mine pretty much. And don´t get me started on CoD! I´m still pretty pissed about it, and not in the british way. BTW who ever got the bright idea to call it CLOD? *heavy sarcasm*

Edit: Well I just missed the part about labels, I think the big label discussions came on because nowaday every publisher and his dumb brother wants to call their game a simulation and thereby they are attacking, what a good part of the people here view as a sim. And next comes the argument: "we don´t want to simulate the airplane in depth but to simulate how it is to fly them!" The question remains if that is an argument. Often that argument is just used to justify dumbing the game down. I also think there is the problem that they don´t want to make people train first before flying, think about it there is a reason Real World pilots are trained on slower trainers first. It´s simply to not overtax their brains, since they can´t think fast enough yet. If you put them in a high performance jet, theiy would be lagging behind the jet, and that is the crux of the problem when they do flying games like Ace Combat or Hawx. It always feels to me like I´m flying an 1917 Camel or my trusty old Tiger Moth or the Stieglitz, instead of a Fighter, but for those new people it might be just on their limit. And the problem is, without some training you simply can´t. There is no instant gratification if flying wants to be realistic. Still one should atleast be tolerant of the more those flying with a less realistic setting, I think we all started like that and some of the sims of old are not so realistic compared to the sims of now. Well they were as realistic as possible on the computers of those times.

Man, I just forgot about writing them most important part of the post. *facepalm*

Hi Polarwolf,

Yes true for me it's a game but a good one with room for improvements. I truly do not wish to come across as aloof or anything when I'm saying that a game is a game. I don't see that as a bad thing. I'm a grown man but am not ashamed to say that I like games, they keep me young and fresh and human. And I'm sure that is true for so many of us. Then, one of the really important reasons I like the genre so much is that it enables so many people to experience flight that otherwise cannot. This is a huge source of my amazement with flight sim games in general for me. I was lucky to make flying my profession but I know that the dream of flying is alive in so many more than have been as lucky like me. So I also understand that people are passionate about it, and I guess I am too. Besides, I don't get to fly WWII warbirds in my job

What I don't like so much is the bickering between the different games like it was some kind of religion. It's no secret that I like Wings of Prey, but don't see why I couldn't also like Cliffs of Dover. Unfortunately I don't have much of a chance to run it with the equipment I have at the moment, and upgrading now specifically for this game doesn't seem to be a good idea when some things are still under development. So I'll wait with that.

On the sounds in the game, they could be better but don't bother me too much. I think they'll be better in whatever sequel Gaijin is going to put out. Maybe I'm more of a visual type to be happy with the immersion I get due to the graphics, but I understand that this doesn't have to be the same for everybody. To me sounds in the cockpit are rather a source of annoyance and disturbance and I do my best to filter them out with good headsets as much as I can, perhaps not unlike the WWII pilots who'd have to endure the roar of their 4 digit HP beasts continuously.

Now about the labeling. I don't know about the attacking and the consequences for a 'serious' sim. Also, who should be the judge as to what is a flight simulation game and what is only a game? Perhaps an individual thing. To me a game as Blazing Angels wouldn't deserve much of a simulation label, while Wings of Prey does, and while I haven't tried it certainly Cliffs of Dover does. In my opinion it's not so much the training effort you have to put in which should distinguish which is which - since all are games the consequences of learning by doing are not comparable with the real thing.

Lastly, I don't think I'd qualify for making a new review either, since I'm a forum moderator on the Gaijin forum. I'd be happy enough if PFunk would look at the last version and say if he'd seen a difference to the previous one.

MAC

P.S.: Schöne Grüsse aus Malta!